Mercedes-Benz’s flagship saloon and the car the rest of the range is built underneath. The nameplate is older than the badge: large Mercedes-Benz saloons date to 1954, but “S-Class” (“Sonderklasse”, special class) was first officially applied in 1972, to the car this catalogue starts with.[1]
This entry covers the W116 of 1972 (the first car to carry the name, and the debut of the 450 SEL 6.9, a 6.8-litre halo saloon with full hydropneumatic suspension) and its successor, the W126 of 1979, widely regarded as the generation that defined the modern S-Class formula of understated bodywork over class-leading engineering. Every generation since the W126 is a gap in this catalogue, not an omission from the car’s history.